This was an experimental poster design we made up on Photoshop to improve our skills on the programme. We started off by choosing a background image of the Lord of the Rings and pasting it onto a new A4 page on Photoshop. I then added a slight blur to the image looking under the filters and using a Gaussian blur, this would make the foreground images stand out a lot more. We were then ready to open each image needed for the layers, we pasted them onto the background image and then re-sized each one to fit. I went over each characters image with an eraser to get most of the background to disappear and then blended the edges into the background. We could then see how some of the images appeared darker so I adjusted the brightness of the others so they would all fit in a blend together.

After merging all these layers together I created a separate layer to add a glow to an object which one of the characters is holding, I did this by using a a large soft white brush to add a new source of light. After doing all these adjustments to the images the background felt quite plain, I searched for a leather texture on the internet and imported it, I desaturated it and overlayed it onto the image then decreased the opacity so you could only just see it. You couldn’t see that much of a difference to the image but it looked good how you could only just see it slightly. I altered the colour balance to make the poster look much more authentic and mysterious which really helped.

Finally I added the Lord of The Rings logo to my poster, I positioned it to where I wanted it and again played with the opacity to see whether it looked better lighter or darker. My poster was the finished.

I feel that creating this poster really helped improve my skills on Photoshop, it helped me to understand how to use layers properly and really experiment with techniques that I liked and could hopefully use on my Awareness front cover.

Here I have looked at some examples of Image Manipulation. Some of these images I did a google image search on and others I browsed through DeviantART and came across some good images.

Example 1

In this image you can see both the before and after examples, so you can really see how much work has been done to the final edited photo. In the original the little boy looks quite innocent and upset, from manipulating it you can see how he has been made to look very mysterious and creepy. The main focus are now his eyes I find this is what really draws you into the image.

From looking at the manipulated image we can see how it has definitely been sharpened, this makes the image appear more focused and improves the quality compared to the original image. It also looks as if it has been darkened maybe by playing around with the brightness and contrast. Shadows in the boys face have been enhanced putting more emphasis on him. We can also see obvious alterations to the boys eyes. I think maybe the white has been picked out and increased, it makes them look like more light is reflecting off his eyes creating this ice cold feel about him.

Example 2

This image has been edited to make it appear very stormy to show how the weather is very bad. We can see how the clouds are such a huge impact in this photo, they have been made to look very grey and misty which is what you really notice about the image. The birds flying around in the sky really add to the eeriness of the image they seem to be toned down slightly to make them appear very faint which also adds to the effect of this image.

From looking at the manipulated image we can tell how the mist and fog has definitely been added to the image I think maybe a stamp has been used to add the birds to the sky. the girl standing in the foreground of the image has been made to look very in focus compared to the out of focus background, I think she has been sharpened in order for her to stand out more than other elements in the image. I also think a coloured filter has been put over the original image to give it a slightly darker appearance. You can see where the sky meets the grass it looks like it has been played around with by maybe using a brush to blur the two together just slightly.

I really like this image, I found it really helpful to use as it is taken outdoors which could link to many of the ideas in Awareness magazine.

Here I looked at blending two photographs together on Photoshop, this allowed us to experiment with the different elements but also try and create different effects to our original photos, which could be linked to an issue raised in Awareness magazine.

Here I layered two of my own images, one was of some dirty looking moss and the other, (a previous image I looked at) was of a dark purple coloured veiny looking leaf. To create this effect I copied one image and pasted it on top off the next photo. We could then start to increase or decrease the Opacity, this allowed us to show more of one photo then the other. For the image I chose I decreased the opacity so that both images were shown the same amount, as they were both fairly dark images this gave an overall negative feel to the overall image.

Another technique we looked at which would help us get the desired effect was choosing which layer looked best, I played around with some of them and finally chose Overlay, this made the image appear even more darker and creepier which was the effect I was looking for. From looking at the final image it looks as if the leaf is covering up whatever else is being shown in the photo, I think maybe this could represent what is going on in the environment and how things are being hidden, we are not aware of everything that is really going on around us.

These are some digital photographs I took which I feel are relevent to issues that could be raised in Awareness magazine which our next project is based around. Below are both the original and manipulated photographs I have chose.

Original Photograph

I took this close up image of the grass in my back garden, I liked how it looked really bright and fresh. If you look closely you can see water droplets on it which is something really effective about the image. I decided to take this photo as I think something this natural and fresh we don’t really get to see anymore were now used to seeing all about droughts in the news and the deficiency of water in certain countries around the world.

For this image I wanted to give a positive vibe about it, I wanted to make it look brighter and almost healthy. Once I had loaded up the photograph into Photoshop I started off with experimenting with all the different features to see which I liked best. I manipulated this photo by going on to image and select colour, I selected white and increased all the colour white that appeared in the photo, this really did make the photo appear brighter and the water droplets were really emphasized more.

Manipulated Photograph

Above is my manipulated image, I think it does look fairly similar to the original but I didn’t want to edit it too much as I think this would have taken the natural feeling away from it. As well as selecting and increasing the colour white in the photo, I also increased the brightness just slightly, this also made it look like the sun was shining brighter on the photo. Overall I think this worked really well, you can see how the photo appears more positive than it already did.

Original Photograph

This is another photo I took very close up in order to make it look abstract. In this image I wanted to really emphasize on the deep dark purple colour of the leaf and look closely at the green coloured veins running all the way over the leaf. The colours of the photo straight away made me feel negative towards the image, therefore I wanted to manipulate the image in a negative way. I also noticed the holes on the leaf, and around the edges you can see how it had started to decay which was something else which made the photo appear negative.

Manipulated Photograph

Above is my manipulated image, to create this effect I increased the shadows and contrast. Increasing the shadows made the leaf appear much darker than the original as did increasing the contrast. You can see how it makes the veins on the leaf stand out much more which was what I was trying to create.

Here I have made up my own melon head, we selected different parts to add to our melon on Photoshop. This exercise helped me work with layers, and rearrange different components for the first time. I got to have a go at using different tools on photoshop to manipulate my head to make it how I wanted it. This exercise helped me to gain different skills and will help me in the future when using photoshop to edit more of my work.